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Haskell logos/New logo ideas

From HaskellWiki

1 The great 2009 Haskell logo contest

The Haskell logo has changed over time, and the current "new" logo reflects the
advanced features of Haskell. However, it is looking rather dated, and doesn't necessarily reflect the mature Haskell we have now.

So, time to find a new logo. Something reflecting the modern emphasis of
Haskell on purity and simplicity.

1.1 Results

Congratulations to Darrin Thompson (idea) and Jeff Wheeler (graphical interpretation) for creating the winning logo! The winning logo is available in multiple formats, see ThompsonWheelerLogo.

1.2 Contest

Please submit logo-sized (not overly large) versions of your logo with optional text, with a preferably white background (such as for use on haskell.org).

Please submit your entries here, and attach your name to them please. To be eligible,
they will need to be visible on this page (e.g. uploaded, or link to the image). The image should be freely available (a suitable freely distributable license). Entries not displayed here won't be eligible.

The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2008, after which the top few submissions will be voted on by the community to decide a winner!

Adjectives

A logo is part of a brand, and a brand is used to project an image. Therefore an important part of this exercise is deciding what image we want to project. An image can be described using a list of adjectives. So here is a sample of adjectives that we might want. This list is not exhaustive: by all means add more if you want them.

The inspiration for this logo is a set of planetary gears. The gears represent the compositional nature of Haskell (bigger gears made out of smaller gears). The colours of the gears are inspired by the paintings of Piet Mondrian, the well known abstract artist, and hence represent the abstract nature of Haskell. The gears are arranged into a shape which resembles a lambda, but only covertly.

The rationality behind my draft:
(1) Haskell is considered powerful but feared. (2) Reversed Biblical logic: condemned to purity to be saved by monads, which according to Leibniz "are arranged by God in a perfect order which ascends to God, the supreme monad". (3) With great respect for Haskell Curry there are other people whom the language owes, thus it is only fair to encourage alternative interpretations for the name.

Playing off a recent Haskell-Cafe thread, in which programming languages were compared to religions, and Haskell was equated to Taoism. The slogan makes at least a little sense: it obviously goes with the logo, and 'Duals' are important to Cat theory, which influences Haskell strongly. SVG available. Font is Lucida Calligraphic, a less ubiquitous calligraphic font might be better.

The main font is Diavlo (free). The lambda is in Candara, which I believe ships with Vista
and/or XP. Not sure of the licensing there. If there's significant interest in this, I'll redo it as a vector graphic.

A slightly different take on the Haskell logo, as the lambda-in-a-circle looks a bit too much like the Half Life logo for my taste. This
one references monads instead of lambda calculus. Three possible slogans, emphasizing the fun that comes from programming in Haskell.
Number 2 and 3 also reference function composition. Number 3 is my personal favourite.

Update: a combination of my two logos on a t-shirt. This time with function arrows to indicate the causal relationships: because Haskell is
pure, it's simple. Because it's simple, it's fun.

Yummy. What's the font? Is it free? Porges 21:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no. The font is called Officina Sans. Is that a problem? FalconNL 00:02, 16 December 2008 (GMT +1)

I like this t-shirt a lot, but I'd change 2 things: change "simple" to "lazy" (I think "pure -> lazy -> fun" is more provocative), and change the lambda to ">>" (there are too many languages with lambda logos already). When can I place my order? :-) --Warren 16:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Simple, clean:

I really like this t-shirt logo, by the way. Gets my vote so far. — Chrisdone 00:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Minor tweak to the above:

Minor modification of the t-shirt logo, the lambda was a bit skewed in my opinion:

Not sure about the colour. I tried to pick the purple from the current logo. Although the lower lambda is rotated there is
historic precedence for other forms of the letter. The lambda takes the angle from
the 'k'. Font is News Gothic. Feel free to play with the concept. Rk 11:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

More vectorial Haskell logo concepts. Using inkscape and the advent font (CC at-nc-nd, by Andreas K.)

It's a fun one but I erroneously read " Chaskell YEEAAAHH!! " Ripounet

The general idea is that it's just "Haskell" but with w lambda instead of the a. The font here is Myriad Pro but this would work with any
good sans-serif font. It's color-agnostic, so it can be easily printer, presented as white on black or changed to a different color.

The idea for this wordmark is to modify A to resemble λ and through this tie together the "Haskell" to the "Lambda". Modified A also works well as a standalone logo:

Note that any logo based on the unmodified λ symbol may look ambiguous to the people outside of Haskell community. While the λ in the context of programming languages is clearly associated with functional programming, it is a lowercase Greek L and so it's reasonable for an outsider to associate it with Lisp, and not Haskell.

PS. I just scrolled up and saw BONUS'es entry (14:40, 16 December 2008). While its idea is close, I think using pure λ in place of an A doesn't work because it effectively turn the name into H-L-skell.

Contact me for SVG. Font is not currently free, but I designed it, so this can change if it becomes "the Haskell font". I think it shows some of the elegance that Haskell has. If you like the font but can put it with a better logo, go ahead. --MaxRabkin 04:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the best way to represent the pure, functional nature of Haskell is with a pure and functional logo! Something modernist, minimalist, clean and simple. I'd prefer not to put highlights of the language's syntax in the logo - that's remarkably concrete for a language good at abstraction. Even lambdas etc. should be slightly hidden - those who know what it's about can see them, and everyone else doesn't think 'what's that funny symbol?'. For the font, again, something functional like a light Helvetica or Univers.

So, I thought I'd have a go at a few variations. I'm not convinced it's worked, but there you go. I've shamelessly ripped off tanimoto's idea. Sgf 08:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Sgf, I really like your logos and I think you captured my idea much better than I could do. I especially like the red one, a bit Escher-esque. I wonder if we could turn the blue one into something that looks more like a snowflake than it currently does. Thanks. tanimoto 10:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I also like the blue and the red logo. The resemblance of a snowflake fits the purity of the language. Perhaps you could give the lambda's more volume to make it more plate-like? Felix

Thanks for the comments. I'm going to be offline for about a week, so I'm not going to have a chance to knock up further variations soon, much as I would like to. So, if you have the time, feel free to generate variations from the Inkscape SVG. Otherwise, I'll have a go when I get back. Cheers, Sgf 01:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Sgf's red logo changed to blue and with the Fonce Sans font that FalconNL has used for another logo. Felix 2008-12-21

And another variation of Sgf's logo, this time using negative instead of positive space.

A few more exploratory variants: I've had a go at closing up the center of the 'snowflake' to make it, well, snowflakier. I've tried pairing this variant up with a conservative-looking serifed font, something functional but less heavily modernist. Then I created a variant which attempts to go for a bit more of a drawn look, to combine the geometric design with some handcrafting, hinting at a combination of the pure, abstract language, but also the lively user community. I paired that with Futura, as a slightly quirky geometric sans serif. - Sgf 22:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Some more variants of Sgf's idea. I've uploaded the SVG version too but you'll need the fonts for it to display correctly.Rk

Yet another variation on tanimoto and sgf's themes, with influences from others. The intent here is fun, pure, simple, complete, intriguing, and a bit paradoxical. (The loose relation to the Cabal logo was unexpected.) Font is Free Sans, but I'd look for better if I had a bit more time.

The compiler sits at the core in negative space, its form suggested by what is built on and around it. Also in negative space, lambdas and reflected lambdas link the golden base library to others, pure primary colours available ready to be combined. Libraries become dimensional as they fit together like puzzle pieces. At each layer they form a whole, complete, yet extensible in all directions.

How about using one of the mythical birds in lambda calculus? Specifically, the ones from the article To Dissect a Mockingbird. Some of the examples:

(Mockingbird)

(Omega bird)

Since Haskell is centered around the idea of lambdas, I thought this would be a cool idea. Plus, they have qualities similar to Haskell: exotic, mysterious, abstract... Aviator 12:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

This is an H composed of two identical vertically tiled lambdas warping from a supernova. It symbolizes the warp of the Haskell-lambda away from the O of object-orientation (symbolized by the supernova).

Created in Inkscape, then adjusted in GIMP. This was my first try at using both tools. I have never done graphic design before.

I created the current, apparently-much-loathed purple-and-green Haskell logo back in
2004 at John Peterson's request. I actually sent him several designs, and I must admit
I rather liked this one better, myself. I later included it on some of the
CafePress merchandise as the "classy Haskell logo". It's main virtues are that it's
sparse and abstract; it's specifically inspired by those hood ornaments you see on
fancy cars (no relation to Andy Gill's Hood debugger).

The fancy typeface goes a little against the grain of "sparse and abstract", but it's
of course independent from the logo itself.

The simplicity of the logo proper (modulo the shadow and the typeface) makes it easy to
reproduce in SVG and the like.

(For a brief time, this logo was available on CafePress in the form of a frisbee, er,
"flying disc", but they stopped carrying the item. It has been available for a while
on shirts and perhaps mugs as well.)

Anyway, perhaps it will appeal to others over the current one as much as it did to me.

As proposed by FalconNL, "Pure->simple->fun(ctional)". Incorporates >>=,->,=>,::,lambda if you look hard enough. Think of the H-lambda logo as a 3D object with three legs that looks like an H from one perspective, a lambda from a perpendicular perspective, and a lowercase h from below. Feel free to improve away...

The diamond shape represents purity and strength. The logo is clean, simple, modern and to the point.

I think the text should be in lowercase because it makes the name "haskell" friendlier and less threatening. See the logos of xerox, at&t, intel and even python for examples of that.

It's a few days late but I made this years ago and thought it was relevant now... By the way note that the four circles are like the double colon :: "has type" syntax in Haskell and the empty space between the circles forms the capital H. The silver bevel effect is just a Photoshop filter and can be applied to any logo.

I'm quite impressed with many of these logos on the page. Wow, Haskellers!

I know I'm past the deadline, but I think somebody mentioned ambigrams on the mailing list. I don't think this is great as it stands, but the combination of unusual symmetry and funky font indicate Haskell's mathematical roots and fun atmosphere.
--MaxRabkin 02:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)